Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Welcome to Through the Bible with our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee. Our travels on the Bible Bus take us through one of the last books in the Old Testament, the book of Zephaniah, where we begin at chapter 3. So, as you find your spot in God's word, let's continue Dr. McGee's message on the covenant that God made with David.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: There are certain great principles, certain great theological facts that you need to know in order to appreciate the book of Revelation to which we are coming, and also to understand these little prophetic books that we call the minor prophets. Now, I've been talking about the covenants that God has made with his people. That is with the nation Israel, and there have been five of those covenants. Now, we come today to the covenant God made with David. We have one more, and that'll be the new covenant, and that's to be made in the future, but it's given in prophecy, and we'll be looking at it.

Now, that covenant is found in the seventh chapter of second Samuel. David had now ascended to the throne, and he has been given great victories. Jerusalem now is is capital. David loved Jerusalem. I suppose it was a better looking place then than it is today, an Arab city actually, the old Jerusalem, and it's not very attractive to me, but David loved the city, and we begin at chapter seven, and I'd like to begin reading because this is to me one of the great chapters of the Bible. It came to pass when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies.

And I think that it was a raining night when this took place, and David sat there in the palace. My, he's the king now, and he thinks that the little ark that he's brought up and the tent down there that it's in. And that represents God. That's where they meet God. God meets them. And David thinks how out of context it is for him to be living in a palace when the one who put him in the palace and made him king is down there. Now, will you notice what happens that the king said unto Nathan the prophet.

He's talking to Nathan. You know, they having a little chat in the evening after dinner, and he says, see now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. Just a palace and a tent. What a contrast, if you please. And Nathan said to the king, go do all that's in thine heart, for the Lord is with thee. Well, here's a time when a prophet was wrong. He told David to go ahead and do what was in his heart, but he is wrong. He's not saying what God wants him to say, and God will correct him by the way, but I don't blame Nathan.

If somebody came to me and said, Dr. McGee, I think that I would like to underwrite all your foreign broadcasts and these others that you want to start, I'd like to underwrite them. I don't think I would say, well, brother, I'll have to go pray about this and find out whether I should take it or not. I think I would take it and then go pray and thank the Lord for it. So, I don't blame Nathan at all, but it came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came unto Nathan saying, go and tell my servant David, thus saith the Lord.

Now, you're going to get it from headquarters. Shalt thou build me a house for me to dwell in? Do you want to really build me a house? Well, God says, we'll have to see about that. He says, whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but it walked in a tent and in a tabernacle, and God has never complained by the way. He identified himself with his people, and that is still true today. God identifies himself with you.

Are you in sorrow today? He's identified himself with you. He went with you to the funeral. When you go to the hospital, he went with you. Of course, it's through the Holy Spirit that these things are made real to us, but let me go on. He says, whereas I have not dwelt in any house. Now, he says, in all places wherein I have walked with all the children of Israel, spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel whom I commanded to feed my people Israel saying, why build ye not me an house of cedar?

God never asked them to do this. David is doing something above what God asks him to do. That's the reason I think most Christians ought to be given more than a tenth to the Lord. God asks Israel for a tenth. You're under grace. And actually, I believe under grace we ought to give more. Now, will you notice? Now therefore, so shalt thou say unto my servant David, thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheep coat from following the sheep to be ruler over my people over Israel. All the way David has come from a shepherd boy to king over Israel, and we'll pick up there next time because I want to deal with this covenant.

Steve Schwetz: Let's pray and get to our study. Gracious heavenly Father, thank you for keeping your promises to David and to us. Bless your word as it reaches across the world, and then give us ears to hear and hearts to understand and obey. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Open to Zephaniah 3 as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: My friends, we come to the last chapter in Zephaniah. Chapter three and the first eight verses we are dealing with judgment. And I suppose by now many of you are tired of listening to Zephaniah talk about the harsh, the extreme, the unmitigating judgment of God upon his people. This is probably the strongest language that you have in the scripture, and these first eight verses in the third chapter, I just don't think you'll find anything any stronger until you come to the language that the Lord Jesus used. And if you want to check that, uh, read the 23rd chapter of Matthew in connection with this chapter here, and you will see that the Lord Jesus even topped Zephaniah in the extreme language of judgment that is giving.

It is blood curdling, if you please. Now, here he returns back to the city of Jerusalem in speaking of judgment that we saw in chapter two that the judgment of God is worldwide. It's global in its extent, and it includes every nation on top side of the earth. Now, we find that God returns to the judgment that is coming upon his people, and he's very specific here, and he reveals that the light that a person has will determine the extent of the judgment. In other words, privilege creates responsibility, and your responsibility is measured by the privilege that you have.

As a pastor, I would always put it like this. I would say that I would rather be in the darkest part of Africa than to be sitting in a Bible believing church today and hear the gospel and do nothing about it. What God will do with a person of privilege who has had the opportunity of hearing the word of God and has turned his back upon it. Now, will you listen to this very extreme language because you just couldn't have anything more extreme than what we have here, and it's judgment on Jerusalem. And as we have put it in our notes, judgment is in ratio to her privilege.

Now, will you listen? Woe to her that is filthy and polluted to the oppressing city. She obeyed not the voice. She received not correction. She trusted not in the Lord. She drew not near to her God. Now, Jerusalem was the city in which the temple was, the priests were there. The scribes had the word of God. While when wise men came from the East, they had no problem in telling you where the Messiah was to be born. They just didn't manifest any interest in checking up on the wise men to see if they had some valid information.

They knew the letter of the law, but that's all that they knew. They did not know the author of the book, and they were far from it. Now, God's condemnation is on this basis. He says that the city is filthy and polluted. You see, this matter of pollution is not something that is new today. Pollution here is not physical. Actually, the pollution is not only outside of a man, it's on the inside of a man. And the thing that's causing the pollution today on the outside is because man is polluted on the inside and filthy.

That is before God he's not right. Now, when a man gets right with God, he's not going to dump his garbage on another man's property, and he's not going to fill a lovely babbling brook with the filth. If you want to know who it is that is polluting this earth that you and I are living on, it's the godless ones that are doing. It was quite interesting here in Southern California several years ago. Down at one of the beach towns, there was a meeting of the godless crowd, and they had got in the pasture down there and had a meeting, and it was a protest meeting, and you know what it was on?

Pollution, you see. They were decrying the pollution of the big factories with their smoke stacks and pouring out all of the dregs and all of the waste material from the factory. And very candidly, I'd agree with them that's a terrible thing to do, but the interesting thing is after they had their protest meeting, the city down there spent $2,000 cleaning up that pasture that those that were protesting pollution had polluted. May I say to you that today pollution is on the inside, and when you're godless and wrong with God, you are certainly going to pollute this earth that we live on.

Man today is actually wrecking this earth that we live on. Now, that's God's condemnation actually of the city of Jerusalem. And this was a privileged city. It was a city that had glorious and wonderful opportunities, but it's also a picture of this city. It's a picture of mankind. And you find that was Paul's verdict over in the third chapter of Romans when he said in verse 16, destruction and misery are in their ways. What a picture of mankind. Mankind has always left a pile of tin cans and rubbish everywhere he goes on the earth today.

What a picture of man. Now, why did he single out this city? Well, this city was a privileged city. This city had the temple of God. It had the word of God, and therefore its judgment will be harsher than that of any others. And he calls it not only filthy and polluted, but he calls it an oppressing city. Well, it is an oppressing city because of the fact that it did not regard the rights, especially of the poor. It did not consider them. It oppressed the poor. And that is something else that I think so hypocritical in our government, and we're not talking politics now, nor are we speaking of any one party.

It's true of the whole structure that you have in Washington today. They're constantly coming up with some program to help the poor. And the interesting thing is it's always some rich senator that's doing this or some rich politician in Washington that comes up with a plan to help the poor. Well, to begin with, they don't know how we feel. They don't know our hardships. Those men have never experienced it. And always it's not a plan to help the poor. It helps some bureaucrat, but it doesn't help the poor. So far, the poor have not been helped, and I don't think that they will be helped by any of the plans that men bring up because of the fact that most of these today recognize that you have to tax the middle class people today for any program.

And I'll be honest with you, I sort of wish I could move out of the middle class either up or down, one of the other, because of the fact that the middle class is making it possible for the upper class to take our money and help the poor class, the lower class today. And I personally would like to move in one of the other brackets. It'd be more comfortable to be there today. And God said he would judge this city for that. And then he's not through. He spells it out. She obeyed not the voice.

Now, she was disobedient to God. In other words, this city had heard the voice of God, but had been disobedient to it. She received not correction. Now, God had sent judgment. 185,000 Assyrians outside the walls of Jerusalem scared the living daylights out of these people, and they were frightened beyond measure. And you would think, well, now we'll learn a lesson from this. We have been partially judged, but God let the judgment pass over. So now we'll turn to God, but they didn't do that. I think that today there's so many Christians that we suffer and we never learn why God permits us to.

He never lets anything happen to his own unless there's a purpose back of it. And therefore this city is like many of us received not correction, did not learn the lesson. She trusted not in the Lord, no trust in him at all, looked to something else. When Israel celebrated her 20th anniversary, that was the motto, science will bring peace to this land. Well, friend, the Bible says the Messiah is the prince of peace, and he's the only one, but they don't trust him. They trust science. And after their 20th anniversary, believe me, Israel got in the hot water.

Science did not bring peace to that land, and we haven't brought it either today. She trusted not in the Lord. She drew not near to her God. And today men are not running to God. They're running from God as fast as they possibly can. What a picture this is of this city. Now, he's still not through. He says her princess with inner are roaring lines. Now, he's talking about the leadership, and you have to talk about the leadership of any nation or any city. These men when they're running for office, they always tell us they are going to think about us, and they're going to help us.

They're going to do something for us. And so far, nobody's ever done anything as best I can tell either from the city level or from the state level or from the national level. Why? Because her princess within her they're roaring lines, or they make a big noise. Her judges are evening wolves. We have another meaning for a wolf today, but I'm not sure about what maybe the Lord included that in here also, but they're evening wolves. In other words, they were willing to work day and night for the people? No, for themselves. They know not the bones till tomorrow.

In other words, they are willing to get all they can. And frankly, I will be greatly relieved myself when many of these men that asked for our vote and went into office and promised to help us, and they didn't help us, but they sure did well because when they retired from office, they certainly were well to do. And that, my friend, applies to a whole lot of folk that we're talking about. That's the thing that God judges, friends. That's the kind of a nation like ours today that has had the word of God, and then to have the same things said to Jerusalem that could apply to us today.

If God spoke out of heaven, he'd have to say this concerning us today. Now, will you notice? He says her prophets are light and treacherous persons. Now, they're light. That doesn't mean they give light. That means that they don't really give the word of God. They give a little smattering of psychology with a few scripture verses put over it like a sugar covered pill. And that's the sort of thing that's being dished out. They don't talk much about judgment, you see, and coming as sinners to Christ. Her prophets are light, and they're treacherous persons, racketeers, religious racketeers.

Again, let me suggest you read the 23rd of Matthew and see if God has changed. The Lord Jesus denounced religious rulers there. I'm reading now from the fourth verse of the third chapter of Zephaniah. He says here, her priests have polluted the sanctuary. Now, again, this is a terrible thing. How have they polluted their sanctuary? They have caused the world outside to lose respect for that which was sacred. By their lives they brought upon the temple, upon the sanctuary this sort of thing. It took place in Samuel's day when Eli was priest, and Samuel was brought up there.

Men no longer had respect for religion. And today many decry the fact that the church has lost its influence. Well, I decry it, but very frankly, I do not think that the church deserves the respect of the outside world when we cannot present and do not present before the world a church that is holy, a church that is living for God today. Now, will you notice? They have done violence to the law. In other words, they did not interpret it accurately. In fact, they did violence to it by omitting teaching the word of God. And the law here of course means the total word of God.

Verse five, the just Lord is in the midst of her. He will not do iniquity. God was not going to do evil. And the minute that his people do evil and God does nothing, it looks as if God approves that sort of thing. God says that he intends to move in judgment. He will not do iniquity. God will not. This is verse five. Every morning doth he bring his justice to light. He faileth not, but the unjust knoweth no shame. The unjust just continue on in sin and no shame at all. That is public knowledge.

Now, we come verse six through eight. You have here the picture of the great tribulation that is coming in the future, that great day of the Lord that he's talked about. And now he moves from the city of Jerusalem to talk about the nations of the world in the last days. I have cut off the nations. Their towers are desolate. I made their streets waste that none passeth by. Their cities are destroyed so that there is no man, that there is no inhabitant. It's been my privilege to walk through the ruins of great civilizations of the past.

And I walk through the ruins of Ostia, the playground of the Romans, just 15 miles from Rome, but not very well known. It will become later as Rome is developing it and become a tourist attraction. Here is where Rome lived it up. This was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire. And it's difficult when you stand in the ruins of that city, in that street there, and you see the stones of that Roman road that are worn by chariot wheels that went over that. And I think that that street and the other streets were crowded and that that city at one time in its heyday was a great city.

Well, God says, I'm going to make them desolate. And it's very difficult to believe that Los Angeles could become desolate, but it could. It's difficult to believe New York City could become desolate, but it could. And God says here, I said surely thou will fear me. Thou will receive instructions so their dwelling should not be cut off. However, I punished them, but they rose early and corrupted all their doings. In other words, the warnings of judgment, the little judgment that came had no effect upon them. And that will bring down finally the great day of the Lord, the time of judgment that is coming upon this earth.

And God says in verse eight, therefore wait upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the pray for my determination is to gather the nations that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger. For all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. This earth you and I are living in is moving to a judgment. They don't believe it, but they're moving to judgment. And it is this judgment that will be initiated when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to this earth.

It begins with the great tribulation period and ends when he comes. Now, next time we are going to pass from the darkness to the day and see the blessings that are in store. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: Dr. McGee's messages remind us why our mission to take the whole word to the whole world is so urgent. If the Lord's stirring your heart to partner with us, begin first by praying that this teaching will reach and transform those in every corner of the globe who are searching for hope. And if you'd like to help get out God's word in more than 250 languages, you can partner with us by clicking give in our app or at ttb.org or call 1-800-65 Bible. By mail, you'll find us at box 7100 Pasadena, California 91109. And in Canada, box 25325 London, Ontario N6C 6B1.

Next time we're going to wrap up our study in Zephaniah with a powerful word of encouragement. I'm Steve Schwetz. See you then.

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